Unconventional Energy

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Overview

Utah contains some of world’s most abundant unconventional energy resources, including oil shale and oil sands. The development of these resources could greatly enhance our region (and nation’s) economy, and energy security.

Quick Facts:

The greatest-known reserves of oil shale in the world are found in the Green River Formation, containing roughly 3.15 trillion barrels.

In addition, the state also boasts a robust energy research and development (R&D) force for advanced energy systems, including hybrid technologies such as combined heat and power, and waste heat recovery. Utah is also home to several premier research institutes leading the way on nuclear research.

Oil Shale

Often referred to as “the rock that burns,” oil shale contains a high concentration of kerogen that ignites when exposed to sufficient heat. When oil shale is processed in a controlled system, liquid shale oil can be separated, and refined into fuel.

While deposits of oil shale are found in various locations around the world, the greatest known deposits are found in the Green River Formation and nearby parts of Wyoming and Colorado. According to the United States Geologic Survey, the area contains roughly 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. Taking into consideration current constraints on oil shale development, the Utah Geological Survey has estimated that roughly 77 billion barrels, located in north-central Utah’s oil shale, could be potentially extracted economically.

Commercial oil shale projects have been operating in Estonia, Brazil, China and other countries for decades producing tens of thousands of barrels of oil annually. Utah is working with a number of companies on state and private lands to deploy new technologies that have the potential of greatly reducing the environmental impact of producing oil from oil shale.

Oil Sands

Oil sands continue to play an increasingly important part in satisfying the world’s demand for liquid fuels. Utah’s oil sands, located in the Uinta Basin, contain an estimated 15 billion barrels of in-place oil, with an additional estimated potential of 23-28 billion barrels. Historically, oil sands have been incorrectly referred to as tar sands – however, oil sand deposits are naturally occuring, while tar is a man-made product synthetically produced though hydrocarbon degradation.

Consisting of a mixture of clay, sand, water, and bitumen (heavy black oil), Utah’s oil sands contain 90 percent less sulfur than the deposits found in Canada, whose majority of petroleum is produced from oil sands. Oil sands require the application of heat to allow the oil to flow, and new projects underway in the Uinta Basin are aiming to greatly reduce the environmental impact of commercial-scale oil sands development.

Advanced Energy Systems

Utah is fortunate including hybrid systems that combine the use of two or more forms of energy resulting in a more efficient system – such as Combined Heat and Power, and Waste Heat Recovery.

Combined Heat and Power systems, also known as co-generation, generate electricity and useful thermal energy in a single, integrated system. Rio Tinto Kennecott’s refinery CHP system helps meet some of the thermal and electrical base loads.

Waste Heat Recovery units are energy recovery heat exchangers that recover heat from hot streams with potential high energy content – such as hot flue gases from a diesel generator, steam from cooling towers, or waste water from steel cooling. Houwelling’s Tomatoes, located in Mona, houses a state-of-the-art unit to heat their greenhouses with waste heat from a nearby natural gas-fired electrical generation facility.

The Utah Heat and Power Working Group is dedicated to advancing opportunities for combined heat and power, waste heat recover and industrial efficiency. Members meet on a regular basis and represent the interests and views of stakeholders from broad sectors of the State. Click here to join.

Nuclear

Utah’s below renowned research institutes are actively engaged in a number of nuclear science initiatives:

Related Posts

The future of nuclear energy – and UAMPS’ possible role in it – will highlight the 19th Annual Member Conference of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, Aug. 17-20, hosted by Logan City in the Riverwoods Conference Center in Logan. Key speakers on Aug. 18, the conference’s first full day, will include Dr. Peter Lyons, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, and Dr. Jose Reyes, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder…

David DeMille – The Spectrum ST. GEORGE – Officials in St. George are considering taking part in a research program that includes plans to build a demonstration power plant using a small nuclear reactor. St. George is part of a conglomeration of Utah utilities called Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), and last week members of the city council gave verbal approval to joining the entity’s research program based on the…

Ray Henry – The Salt Lake Tribune The explosions that rocked a crippled Japanese nuclear plant in 2011 show what happens when nuclear fuel fails during severe accidents. Now researchers are trying to develop tougher types of fuel that might reduce the damage during extreme events like the one at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. While scientists have been experimenting with these ideas for years, the U.S. Department of Energy…

Mary Bernard – Vernal Express Two wildflowers that grow in isolation on oil-bearing shale in southern Uintah County may avoid being on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species list through an agreement reached on Monday among federal and state agencies. The agreement is a draft-15-year conservation plan to protect the Graham’s beardtongue and White River penstemons in their native habitat. It was reached among the Bureau of Land…

Amy Joi O’Donoghue – Deseret News SALT LAKE CITY — A federal proposal to set aside nearly 83,000 acres in Utah and Colorado to protect a pair of rare flowering plants will cost nearly $3 million in the first year, mostly to traditional oil and gas producers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft economic analysis on the impacts of designating critical habitat for the Graham’s beardtongue and…

Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune Utah has a new player looking to unlock the Uinta Basin’s Eocene bounty of oil shale. London-based TomCo Energy on Monday filed papers with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining proposing large mining operations on state land in the southeast corner of Uintah County. TomCo licensed a new extraction technology from Red Leaf Resources, which has recently lined up its permits and expects to begin mining…

Amy Joi O’Donoghue, Deseret News SALT LAKE CITY — Amid all the contentious strife over energy development, access to Utah lands and the federal government, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is trying to broker a solution that strikes at compromise. Why not agree that some lands are worth preserving, grant them protections and in turn get “resource” rich lands that are marked for development? “One of the things I am trying to…

By Brian Maffly | The Salt Lake Tribune Oil shale production can now move forward in Utah. Regulators on Friday issued a groundwater permit to Red Leaf Resources, a Utah company planning to develop a shale mine and below-grade ovens to heat ore mined from state land in the Uinta Basin. A yuletide present to those championing Utah energy production, the permit issued by the UtahDivision of Water Quality is the last…

By Chester Dawson A boom in oil production Utah has increased the state’s output to the highest level in 25 years, but that rising tide also is giving a lift to more exotic plays: petroleum trapped in sand and hard shale rock. Eastern Utah has the largest oil sands formation in the U.S. as well as extensive oil shale rock resources—not to be confused with the shale oil extracted from the Bakken…

David DeMille - The Spectrum
ST. GEORGE – Officials in St. George are considering taking part in a research program that includes plans to build a demonstration power plant using a small nuclear reactor.
St. George is part of a conglomeration of Utah utilities called Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS),...